iPhone 11 may have USB-C element, but not on the handset itself

Faster USB-C charging in the box

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(Image credit: Future)

The iPhone 11 will finally ditch its 5W charger and come with a USB-C wall adapter in the box that will recharge its batteries faster, according to a new rumor.

It doesn’t seem like the phones themselves will ditch the dependable Lightning port - Apple will just ship the iPhone 11 with the 18W wall charger introduced with the latest iPad Pro along with a Lightning-to-USB-C cable.

While you could pick up a USB-C charger and use them with the iPhone XS or iPhone XR today, packing them in-box is exciting news for anyone who doesn’t want to spend more to charge their phones faster.

It might not happen - the leak comes courtesy of a tweet by ChargerLAB, which incorrectly asserted last year that a new USB-C charger would arrive with the iPhone XS-generation. Instead, they came with the iPad Pro models that came in October, as 9to5Mac pointed out.

Still, it would help Apple gain a bit of ground in the fast-charging race they’re desperately losing to literally every Android flagship. The OnePlus 7 Pro comes with a 20W fast charger in the box, and the new Samsung Galaxy Note 10 packs a 25W charger - though you can opt to buy the 45W charger they’re selling separately.

Bigger batteries, too?

Fast charging would help top up even bigger batteries: the Taiwan-based site Digitimes claims that all three iPhone 11 models (regular, Max, and budget R-equivalent) are getting larger capacities than last year’s models.

According to these estimates, the iPhone 11 will pack a 3,200mAh battery (up from an estimated 2,658mAh), the iPhone 11 Max will get 3,500mAh (up from 3,174mAh), and the iPhone 11R will get 3,000mAh (slightly higher than the 2,942mAh of the iPhone XR).

We’ve heard previous rumors that the new iPhones will get additional battery - Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo estimated the standard model would get 25% more capacity than the iPhone XS - but these increases feel a bit more conservative, with a 9% increase of the next Max over the last model. (Given the iPhone XR packed more battery than the iPhone XS, perhaps the Digitimes estimates have swapped those two.)

We'll see how accurate these rumors are when the iPhone 11 launches, which we expect to be on September 10.